Tag: living with less

Update on my 6 months of buying nothing new challenge

**Spoiler alert…I bought something!*

As many of you know, part of my simple living journey is learning to buy and consume less stuff. To jump start this process, I am challenging myself to go 6 months without buying anything new. I am almost 2 months into my challenge. See the original post here for more details!

Anytime that I discuss my challenge with someone, I always seem to get the same question.

'Well?? Have you bought anything new??'

My answer is yes. I am not perfect. However, my shopping is drastically reduced. In fact, aside from my grocery trips, which only occur every 2 weeks, I have not stepped foot into a department store or super market.

So what did I buy?

I bought the grey and white stuffed animal pictured below (on the right). Unfortunately, I think that Target must have known about my challenge to buy nothing new, because they messed up and sent me the incorrect thing….not just once, but twice. That grey stuffed animal is what I ended up with, but that is NOT what I purchased.

Allow me explain…

The all white stuffed animal, pictured above (left), is my daughter’s attachment object. Its name is ‘mini Cooper’ since it is a miniature version of our white huskie mix, Cooper. Mini Cooper has to be with my daughter for naptime and bedtime. She will cry and search for this stuffed animal when she gets tired. This meant that I was constantly lugging the animal to and from daycare everyday to make sure that he was there for naptime and at home for bedtime. I would even occasionally forget to bring him home…which made for a less than fun bedtime routine. I decided that having two ‘identical’ stuffed animals would make life a bit more simple…and that is the goal right??

Imagine how happy I was that with a quick google search I was able to find an identical match to her white ‘Mini Cooper’. A few days later I get the notification that my item has been delivered. I rush to open the box when we get home, anxious to see what my daughters reaction will be when she sees another ‘mini Cooper’. Well….it was not a stuffed animal. It was this Fortnite Elf figure. I obviously got the wrong package. Customer service was quick to fix the issue and sent out a replacement package ASAP.

A few days later, another package arrived. I opened it up and boom, wrong stuffed animal. At this point, I realized that this was a sign that I should not have attempted to buy something. I decided to just give the grey stuffed animal to my daughter and see what she thought. Turns out, it must be close enough, because she loves it. Now, even though they are not identical, I finally have a stuffed animal for daycare and for at home.

My conclusion-

I’m happy that I don’t have to lug a stuffed animal to and from daycare everyday now, but I don’t think I am going to be as tempted to buy something again soon…it was more trouble than it was worth.

My simple method for keeping a home clutter free

Something in, something out

If you’re like me, you feel like you’re always organizing your cabinets, drawers, and closets. You get everything in its perfect place. Then, a few weeks later, everything is overflowing and disorganized again.

How does that happen??

There are many things that happen on a regular basis that hinder our best efforts to stay organized. One of the major things is that we are constantly accumulating more stuff! My closets and cabinets do not magically get bigger just because I have purchased more things. No wonder it always seems like my closets are going to explode.

The first thing that I did in order to get more organized was to purge everything that I hadn’t touched, used, or worn in over a year. That means I made it through all 4 seasons, birthdays, holidays, nights out, without ever needing it. This purging process did not happen over night. I used a systematic method and spread the work out over a month or so. More on that in a different post!!

After I spent so many hours clearing my clutter, I was determined to keep things that way.

So begins the enforcement of my something in, something out rule. Every time that we come home with a new item that needs a ‘home’ in a cabinet, drawer, or closet- something old must first be removed from there before the item can be put away.

Once we decide what item is going to be the ‘something out’, we then have to decide what to do with it. The items has 4 possible places to go.

Donate- I keep a donate box in my garage. Once the box gets full, I pop it in my trunk and drop it off in a donation bin at my local grocery store.

Recycle- If the item that I am getting rid of has no use to anyone, but is made of a recyclable material…then that’s where it goes.

Trash- Only if there is no use for the item, not able to be recycled, or broken and unable to be fixed.

Re-purpose- Sometimes I pull items out of cabinets or closets that would have a nice use somewhere else in my home. If this happens, I re-purpose the item and place it in its new home.

Finally- when I feel like we are starting to slack with the something in – something out rule, I will briefly implement a one thing in, two things out rule to actively reduce clutter.

The ultimate goal is to get to a place where you realize that you really don’t need lots of new items. You will start to reflect closer on the items that you purchase. You will start to consider if the item you are looking at purchasing is actually worth getting rid of something else in your home (often times the answer is no). This will lead to a more content feeling with the items that you own…and less of a desire to purchase new items just for the sake of buying stuff.